ENMU topples West Texas A&M Buffs, 71-57

LANCE LAHNERT

Saturday

Jan 26, 2013 at 8:51 PM

So much for home court advantage.

Three days after losing to West Texas A&M in New Mexico, Eastern New Mexico crossed the border Saturday and beat WT.

Propelled by the shooting of acrobatic 5-foot-11 Rodney Blackmon, ENMU outscored WT by 19 in the second half and used those points for a 71-57 Lone Star Conference victory before 1,297 fans in the First United Bank Center in Canyon.

The winning on each other's homecourt isn't normal in LSC circles, but it seems seeing WT and ENMU split games isn't so unusual.

This marks the fourth straight year WT and ENMU have split the two-game conference series.

"Give all the credit to Eastern New Mexico," said WT coach Rick Cooper. "They just beat us. It is a difficult dynamic when you are coming off an emotional win. But for whatever reason we just didn't handle the duress."

WT held off ENMU, 69-65, in overtime on Wednesday, but saw ENMU play payback by scoring 47 points in the second half by shooting 72.7 percent from the floor (16-of-22) Saturday night.

That lights-out scoring arrived following a 24-point first half.

Blackmon was the Buffs' main nemesis, scoring a game-high 21 points by canning 7-of-14 shots. He also hurt WT by using his quickness and dribbling deep into the Buffs defense and finding open teammates for seven assists.

"He is a quality guard," Cooper said. "We were pressuring him but when he was able to get into the paint he hurt us by dumping it off."

"We made stops on one end and made shots on the other end," said ENMU head coach Andrew Helton, his team moving into a tie in the conference standings with WT at 4-6. "I'm proud of how we played tonight. And kudos to West Texas for beating us at our place."

The Buffs departed halftime in good shape, leading 29-24 and having held ENMU scoring-machine Blackmon to one 3-pointer. Blackmon lit the Buffs up for 26 points during Wednesday's overtime game in Portales, N.M.

ENMU's Jordan Awoye picked up the first-half scoring slack for Blackmon with 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting from the floor.

Another bright spot for the Buffs was the way senior post Mason White of Randall High impacted the game. White, coming off a 16-point performance Wednesday, led all WT scorers at half with nine points, hurting ENMU by scoring near the basket in traffic. He also grabbed four rebounds.

That all changed in the second half.

ENMU busted out with a 9-4 run the opening 3:29 of the first half with Blackmon and Dennis Hardwell scoring or assisting on all the points.

ENMU handed WT just its second double-digit loss of the year.

During an almost three-minute span WT went from trailing by a point to down by 10 points when Blackmon scored on a drive. The Los Angeles native added another drive and a 3-pointer during the ENMU 11-2 run and received scoring help from Rafael Love. Love swished a 3-pointer from the top of the key and added a free throw,

"For us to be any good we have to make open shots," Helton said. "I thought Rafael's basket in there was huge. Because they are very good team, a very good rebounding team. I'm proud of how we played tonight. I was very appreciative of all the green here. There was some terrific support."

WT never moved ENMU's lead under seven points over the final four minutes.

Kyle Lantz joined Awoye (10 points) and Blackmon in double figures for ENMU.

WT's shooting numbers were telling of the outcome. The Buffs shot 36.4 percent from the floor in the second half (12-of-33), 3-of-18 (16.7 percent) from 3-point range for the game, and was 6-of-13 from the free throw line on the game.

WT senior Donald Sims was also a bright spot, pulling off a double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds, while White added 14 points.

"I think maybe we had kids who were trying to get the game over like we'd already won it," Cooper said. "I don't know. But certainly that wasn't case. We just didn't have it."